What the world calls virtue, without Christ, is a name and a dream. The foundation of all human excellence must be laid deep in the blood of the Redeemer’s cross and in the power of his resurrection.
~Frederick William Robertson (1816-1853)
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him the whole fullness of Deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in Him, who is the Head of all rule and authority. In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Colossians 2
Oh beloved. This writer has tried for years to express the power of the One who has saved us. And every attempt, while worshipful, seems way more than a bit short of what He has done; and Who He is.
And the past few days have shown this fool of a writer, just what a fool he is.
My years of growing up in the hothouse of the neat and tidy West, with its neat and tidy denominations, and neat and tidy systematic theologies, had blinded me to more than half of the Gospel. i knew the Good News was way beyond enormous, and nearly infinite in scope – and still i missed it.
In the short span of our fallen-human history, we see that a fallen Adam and his beloved Eve left the Garden about six-thousand years ago. And their exit was an epic fall from grace. It was in the single decision to do what they wanted to do – instead of obeying an infinitely better-seeing and better-understanding Father – that sin entered this world. And upon sin entering the world, everything apart from Christ has been going to hell since that day.
This was a very bad day for humanity. And it seemed to this writer that it sure took a long time for G_d to bring about His plan of redemption for the planet. Even as the promise unfolds in the early parts of Genesis, it is seen that there is a Seed proceeding from Eve Who will save us all – and crush the head of the serpent who precipitated all this mess in the first place.
So, this fool sometimes asked the question: Why did it take 4,000 years for Jesus to show up the scene?
And He gives more grace. And His Spirit will lead us into all truth.
Actually, it was there in His Word all the time.
While the timing was surely optimal – for surely He does all things perfectly – it did not particularly matter what time in history Jesus arrived on the scene.
What?
Yeah.
Can we see it? The cross is the epicenter of history, but the impact of the event is so far-reaching as to be uneedful of a specific placement on the calendar. Jesus, as G_d, came to earth as a man, lived a perfect life, and poured out His precious blood in perfect Love for every man and every sin ever committed – past, present and future. Said simply, Jesus Christ died for everyone who ever lived, does live, and will breath in the future.
And further, the effect of the cross was so profound as to actually reach backwards through time and save those who where putting their forward-looking faith in His coming. This is in exactly the same way as those who are putting their faith in a Jesus they mostly see in the rear-view mirror of history.
Said even more simply: The message of the Gospel has always been the same. Trust G_d fully, surrender in belief to His truth and His Love and His promise of redemption. There has never been any other gospel.
Read it for yourself. Start with these few, and move on from there… Abel, Abraham, Joseph, Israel, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, David, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Joel… and on and on and on.
Stop trying to do it by yourself.
Believe G_d.
Trust Him fully.
Obey Him.
Let Him Love you.
Let Him Save you.
And He most surely will.
And what we see in the “Old Testament,” is not a history of people who missed the mark, and mostly missed the chance to be redeemed once Jesus entered the world. But rather, we see a people who were receiving the exact same message we are receiving today. To show people before He came, their need for Him, G_d laid down an unkeep-able law which simply showed the absurdity of trying to be good enough to make it into the kingdom. And the error of people during that time was to think that – if they just tried hard enough – they could tip the scales and make it in.
Nothing has changed.
Today, we have the example of only one Man who actually did keep the Law in its entirety. But, in examining Who He was, we find that He was (and is) G_d. And this shows us the absolutely, absurdly impossible Law could only be kept by an infinitely powerful and patient Being. However, while most are thankful for the heroic effort of Jesus, they still believe they can somehow be good enough to approach a Day of judgement and squeak through on their own merits.
And this is very Good News for all of history’s humanity. For herein lies both the problem and the solution.
G_d has, does, and will always say that human effort at being redeemed is silly at best and eternally damning at worst.
But G_d, has, does, and will always say that trusting in Him, casting our faith and our lives into His able Hands and promises and work – is a foolish move in the eyes of the world – but will always redeem us for eternity.
And Jesus, when He did what He did on the cross, simply fulfilled 4,000 years of promises, set a stake in history, and set the stage for the fulfillment of His coming Kingdom on that Day. He could have done this two minutes after Adam fell, or two minutes before the second coming – and everything would effectively be the same. For, faith has always been the one thing accounted to a man as righteousness – and never has doing lots of good things been the way home.
He is the Way.
He is the Truth.
He is the Life.
